One last audio trick for you while we're here. If your audio is too low and you have manually raised the levels as high as they will go, but it's still not enough, what do you do? Some programs such as Apple's Final Cut Pro have an audio gain filter that could introduce sound noise, which you should keep in mind - but what if your program doesn't have an audio gain filter? You can try copying the audio and pasting it into a new audio track under the present audio tracks. Obviously, it has to be exactly in sync or you will get an echo, but this will in effect raise your audio. You can cut-and-paste as many times as you need, but keep in mind that it will also raise unfavorable sounds in your audio track.

One mistake even experienced media producers make is with the 180-degree rule and/or with eyeline. This is a dire mistake, as it can really confuse your audience. For a simple example, imagine a woman talking to a man. In the two-shot, the woman is on the right of the screen, the man on the left. When the scene moves into an OTS (over the shoulder) behind the man, the woman is still on the right and the back of the man's head is on the left. Now, for some reason your cameraperson crosses the line and the man is on the right and the woman is on the left. Oops! A simple and quick solution is to flip the image in post. This unfortunately doesn't always work, as everything in the image is flipped. Viewers have an uncanny way of remembering that the lamp was on the left and the framed Picasso was on the right. Even worse is a store or traffic sign - or any wordage, for that matter. If the camera is locked down (on a tripod and not panning or tilting - in other words, not moving at all), you might be able to throw some natural-looking shadow on the reversed text on signs, or even insert a new sign made in Photoshop. But you'll have to get lucky to make it believable. Give it a try - I've pulled it off a couple of times.

Extreme problems call for extreme solutions. Here are two examples. I spent over $1,000 shooting a 16mm film short only to find there was a light leak in the lens the entire time I shot. I put so much work into planning, casting, rehearsing, building sets and shooting only to find my footage completely "shot." I was very upset while looking at this footage, which had been converted to Mini DV, when a colleague in the edit bay with me said, "Looks kinda like a 1940s film." Eureka! I "down-converted" the footage to 18 frames per second, discolored it further, added some digital scratches, "digital hair in the gate" and "shutter jumps" and some old-looking opening and closing "boards" as titles. People were amazed with the "old look" I achieved.

The second example comes from one the projects done by my students. They plugged in the external shotgun mic as I had instructed but forgot to turn it on! They shot the whole day without capturing any audio. Most of the shots for this video were closeups, making automatic dialog replacement (ADR) very difficult. A quick brainstorm and they came up with the idea to ask one of their Japanese classmates to do the ADR, turning it into a poor dub, supposedly for Japanese audiences. Along with subtitles and some funny hidden messages in the Japanese dialog, the piece came out pretty well.

These are just a few of the editing dirty little tricks some of us at Videomaker have used over the years. We now want to hear yours. If we feel it could help our readers, we will publish your tricks in the magazine, no matter how dirty they are.

Contributing editor Morgan Paar is a nomadic producer, shooter and editor, who is currently teaching high school video production.